The developmental approach to 'working through' in the analytic process

The developmental orientation and approach has been utilized in this paper as a paradigm to understand some of the phenomena of working through in the analytic process. A case is presented of a patient who was arrested along several developmental lines and had suffered from a wool fetish. Many changes in the working through process could be attributed not only to meliorative effects of interpretation but to developmental progression as well. Furthermore, this developmental progression occurred within the analysis not only in relation to the analyst's interpretations but to the developmental impact on the patient of experience with the analyst and with significant others. The patient attained increasing capacities to utilize insight in actions that themselves led to new experience of developmental import, and in a spiral process, further structural developmental change was achieved which consolidated its dominance through further capacity for new insights.